


Potentia

by enkaychi



Series: Dragon Fire [2]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Bonding, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkaychi/pseuds/enkaychi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In records of the history of the Terran Empire, Emperor Yunho would be known in some records as the Light Bringer, in others he would be known as the Red Death, but before that he was just a prince with an aspiration for the throne, no different from any other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Royal Wedding

Yunho leaned back in the shallow pool in the bathing room attached to his personal quarters on the ship. He closed his eyes as his attendants poured the floral smelling water over his hair. He had been scrubbed, washed, poked and prodded all day long and would have loved nothing more than to throw the entire lot of them out out an escape shaft, but he was too nice for that.

Yunho was not a typical prince. While he could have chosen to spend every day being pampered the way he currently was, the way many of his fellow royals chose to be, he didn’t. The near constant attention grated on him, he was perfectly capable of doing all these things for himself, and he considered the use of this pool an extreme waste. 

Water was a luxury in space. The water used on a spaceship would be filtered and recycled but there was a limit to how much of it could be carried at once. Too much would create unstable weights even in a ship of such massive size as the Paradise and the recycling and purification units used nearly as much space as the engines driving the ship.

The twenty or so men and women responsible for making sure Yunho completed this ritual properly and in its entirety had probably not bathed in water since the ship had set out for his Seeking Journey three years ago. Most space travelers were unable to afford even the luxury of a small shower and made do with the sonic cleansing units that were built standard on all space ships. But Yunho was royalty and royals of the Terran Empire simply did not due without. He would hazard a guess that his parents and his sister had not used a sonic cleansing unit a day in their lives. 

It was beyond luxury, it was decadence and Yunho couldn’t help but be uncomfortable with it when he thought about the billions of people in the empire who couldn’t afford regular access to clean water even though they lived planetside. He was only putting up with it now because it was a necessary part of the pre-wedding rituals. 

The purification process was tradition and the empire took tradition very seriously. Any small deviation from the wedding traditions would be cause for _talk_ and Yunho could not afford talk, especially not the kind that would suggest he was not respecting the empire’s religious traditions. The entire reason for this wedding was to show his dedication to the laws and traditions of the empire, something that would would strengthen his candidacy for the imperial throne. The current emperor was old and nearing death. Preparations needed to be made in order for the Council of System Lords to consider his claim, more preparation than many other princes would need.

Marriage was not necessary for consideration for the imperial throne but in Yunho’s case it would only help him.Yunho might be the Prince of Dragons and a system lord’s heir but his claim to the imperial throne was tenuous at best. His house, although far wealthier and much larger than most, had no direct blood connection to the imperial line making it unlikely that that the council would vote for Yunho without him legitimizing his claim. Marriage was one way to do this. He had had to at least have the appearance of supporting the current imperial edicts.

Each member of the ruling class had to take an Honored Spouse, a citizen of the second class whose marriage would raise his or her family’s status to the first class. Social mobility, at least the appearance of it, was important in keeping the people content and unrebellious. The only way to escape this law was to take the path of religion, in Yunho’s case he would have had to join the Order of the Dragon, but acolytes of the various orders were not eligible for rule.

Yunho had spent the last year on a social circuit of the Dragon system. Changmin, Yunho’s brother in everything but shared parentage, had told him to just pick someone off one of the first couple of planets and be done with it, the person really only had to pretty enough to fuck, but Yunho wanted a spouse he would be able to stand. During the Selection Balls Yunho had met a multitude girls who were good conversationalists and boys who turned his head for a moment but he hadn’t met anyone who kept his attention until he’d seen a skinny, black-haired boy with the fullest set of lips and the most striking pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

The sight had sent a bolt of lust through Yunho so strong that only Changmin’s firm grip on his arm had stopped him from carrying the boy off then in there. Yunho, in a fit of irrationality had nearly torn off Changmin’s arm that night thinking the other man wanted the boy for himself. Yunho had seen challengers in every gold and silver robe that night and the thought of anyone else having his boy had made his blood boil. He had been grateful for Changmin’s presence once his judgment was no longer clouded by lust. There was a procedure and protocol to this business, a tradition, and it had to be followed to the letter. It did not involve making off with his Chosen as if their people had never been civilized.

He’d informed his father that he had Chosen and arrangements had been made. The boy, whose name he’d learned was Jaejoong, had been delivered to the ship that same night. After all, it was not as if the boy’s family would refuse.

That had been a week ago and as per tradition, Yunho had not seen his Chosen since that night. Jaejoong had been left in the care of Boa, Yunho’s resident priestess of the Order of the Dragon, and her acolytes, Key and Woohyun. In that week the ship had traveled to Imugi III, the nearest of the Dragon system’s Ancestral Planets, where the wedding ceremony and Bonding process would be completed.

Despite it being an obligation he needed to fulfill, Yunho was actually looking forward to having an Honored Spouse. He had been somewhat jealous when Changmin had picked up Junsu at one of Yunho’s own Selection Balls. Changmin had been extremely relaxed for weeks following his marriage and Yunho could use that type of relaxation considering the stress and danger he put himself through when he was able to escape the Paradise and was out of his father’s presence.

Yunho was questing. It sounded ridiculous and outdated but it was an accurate description for what he was doing. He was on a quest to complete the Egg, the Artifact of the Dragon system. It was near legend and practically superstition but it was also nearly religion in the empire. Not all systems in the empire had an Artifact. The ones that did were said to be the systems where their Ancestors had settled when they had left the Homeworld. These were the original systems of the Terran empire, the others being groups of planets that their Ancestors had either acquired through treaty or through conquest. The Panther system, now absorbed into the Dragon system after the reckless actions of greedy system lord, had been one such system of planets.

Legend said that the Artifacts were the pieces of technology that their Ancestors had used to Merge with the species they had found on their new planets, records of their legacy. True descendants in the Dragon System had the DNA of the giant serpents that had lived in the waters of the Imugi planets. It made them faster and stronger than regular humans, enhanced their senses, and gave them varying degrees of ability in the psychic arts. Yunho himself had some talent in telekinesis. Changmin was a mindwalker, he couldn’t hear the thoughts of the people around him but he could transfer a part of his consciousness into their mindscape and interact with them on a deeper level.

These Artifacts had been lost millenia ago as the legend went. Anyone who could find a complete artifact would be considered blessed by the Ancestors and would have full right to the imperial throne as the new Progenitor.Yunho had proof that the Artifacts were more than legend. He had already found several pieces of what he believed to be the Egg since he had started looking for them ten years ago when he’d been sixteen. His Seeking Journey was a good cover for his real reason for wanting to travel to every corner of his system and he had found half as many pieces in the last year than he had in the nine years before. It would be more difficult now that he had Chosen but he would find a way to continue.

Yunho stood up in the pool when one on his attendants lifted his head indicating they were finished washing him. Beads of water ran down his body back into the pool. Two attendants took him by the arms and led him out of the pool. Several others dressed in plain gray robes were waiting with their heads bowed at the base of the stairs that led to the pool, holding large white towels. 

Yunho held his arms out at his sides and let then pat him dry. They did not speak as they worked. Servants were to perform their tasks correctly and efficiently. They could be seen but they were not to be heard and for most nobles, their servants were beneath notice. Yunho would more often than not speak to his servants but the Purification process required silence, once again for no other purpose than the sake of tradition, so he stood quietly and let them work. 

Once he was dry, his neck length black hair was combed out to lie flat framing his face and his skin was rubbed with a light cream, floral and effervescent, the same scent used in the bath. A long black ceremonial robe was pulled up his arms and settled on his shoulders. A row of silver clasps in the shape of a dragon’s tail adorned the front of the robe spanning from neck to ankles, each one was fastened carefully. The hood attached to the back of the robe was left to lie flat on his back, he wouldn't need to to wear it until he was transported down to the planet.

The style was odd to say the least, looking more like something an acolyte of the Order would wear for public ceremonies than something a prince would wear for his wedding but it served a purpose. Fully naked under the robe, Yunho would not need to remove a million pieces of clothes to consummate his marriage. It was efficient.

And traditional. 

-

The transport bay was a large open room with large metal disk on the floor in the center of the room. The disc was one part of a machine that would allow teleportation from the ship down to the planet. There was a corresponding disc down on Imugi III. Each ship was outfitted with a teleportation disc, though varying in size, the one on the Paradise was large enough to fit fifty or so people at once. The teleportation discs installed on planet surfaces were large enough for several thousand bodies, the capacity usually used to keep traffic from traders and travelers from different ships flowing without delay. Each disc had a unique designation code used form the connection between discs. The only limit to the technology was distance. A person could be transported within the same planet but could not be directly transported to another and a ship needed to be within a planet's orbit in order for the deconstruction and reconstruction process to work properly. Otherwise a person risked having their molecules scattered across the universe, their consciousness left without a vessel, essentially, although not conclusively, dying.

The transporter bay was filled with people in black robes milling about, wedding guests consisting mainly of the nobles who rotated on and off the ship during Yunho’s Seeking and a few of the royals of nearby planets. The robes they wore were similar to the one Yunho wore but without the front clasps, most already with hoods covering their heads. It was all a bit silly and seemed rather ancient cult like to Yunho but he supposed that was something of the point. The wedding ceremony of a royal prince was considered sacred and would not have seemed out of place among some of the rituals of the more extremist ancient religions, bearing a great deal of resemblance to a human sacrifice ritual. No matter what anyone said that’s what this wedding was, maybe not in the literal sense but certainly in spirit.

Yunho could recognize his parents in the crowd, standing closely together, and knew his sister was somewhere in the room. He wondered briefly if Jaejoong would have liked his family to be here but the thought was dismissed almost as soon as it formed. It just wasn’t done. Honored Spouses did not have contact with their families after being Chosen. Besides, it was not as if Jaejoong would know whether his family was here or not and after their bond was solidified he would not even care. Yunho’s family would become Jaejoong’s family and as far as Jaejoong was concerned it would be as if they had always been his family. It was one of the many things Yunho wanted to change when he became emperor.

“Nervous?”

Yunho turned around at the question and was greeted by two figures with raised hoods, one with a broad frame standing with arms crossed over his chest. Kangin was the son of one of the planetary nobles in the Dragon System and had been one of Yunho’s best friends since they were teens. Most people assumed Kangin was a bodyguard due to his large size and the fact that he was never far from Yunho. The assumption had been given credence by the fact that Kangin had once snapped the neck of an assassin who had been sent to kill Yunho when they’d been at the Imperial Military Academy. It was a deception that suited them both. As a noble Kangin should have had other duties that would have kept him from Yunho’s side had Yunho been anyone but a royal prince. His protection was paramount.

The other figure Yunho recognized by his compact frame and the nervous bouncing he did on his toes. Junsu and Changmin had not been married long enough for their bond to fully settle and Changmin’s absence was a strain on Junsu, who had been left in Yunho’s care while Changmin was away. Yunho had in turn tasked Kangin with looking after him when Yunho was busy. 

Yunho spared the teenager a worried glance before answering Kangin, “No.”

“You sure? No performance anxiety?” The words were teasing and Yunho didn’t have to have known Kangin for years to tell he was smirking under his hood.

“Why? Are you worried you’ll have trouble when it’s your turn,” Yunho retorted. 

Kangin grumbled back but didn’t really answer. Although Kangin’s wedding, whenever it happened, wouldn’t be as ceremonial as Yunho’s it would still require a public consummation. Yunho wasn’t the least bit nervous but he knew Kangin had his own reservations about the entire matter. He would take great pleasure in teasing Kangin when it was his turn. 

Yunho turned his attention back to Junsu who was still bouncing on his feet and had raised a hand to his mouth to gnaw on his fingernails. He rested one hand on Junsu’s head and pulled Junsu’s hand away from his mouth with the other. The bouncing stopped and Yunho could feel the tension leaving the teenager’s body. Neither he nor Changmin was sure why but Yunho’s touch had always relaxed Junsu, almost the same as the effect Changmin had on the boy. He suspected Boa might know why but she wasn’t talking. Priestesses of the Order did not spill their secrets lightly. It would be interesting to see if Changmin would have the same effect on Jaejoong.

Yunho took his hand off Junsu’s head but kept a firm grip on the boy’s wrist. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.

Junsu looked up at Yunho quickly, the hood raising enough for Yunho to catch a glimpse of Junsu’s eyes before he cast his gaze back to the ground. “I’m fine.”

Yunho hummed in response and looked to Kangin for confirmation. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Junsu, the boy was literally incapable of lying to him in his current state, but that state also meant that Junsu probably wouldn’t recognize if he wasn’t fine. He could have a broken arm and he would still say he was fine. It was a side effect of the unsettled bond and often made Yunho regretful that Changmin was separated from Junsu but it couldn’t be helped at the moment. Yunho needed Changmin to be doing what he was doing and Changmin couldn’t do that while he was still on the Paradise and it would have been dangerous to take Junsu along with him.

Yunho let out a soft sigh when Kangin nodded. “Alright,” he said, squeezing Junsu’s wrist lightly. “Stay with Kangin while you’re on the planet.”

Junsu nodded and Yunho let go. 

There was one thing he needed to check before they transported down to Imugi III and wouldn’t be able to speak with anyone beyond the words required for the ceremony. He looked over the crowd and found Boa standing with her hood down, lips pursed and a stern look on her face. Her acolytes, Woohyun and Key, were by her side looking as uneasy as they had for the past week. There was something wrong with the three of them and Yunho needed to know if it involved Jaejoong. He didn’t think Boa would keep something that would affect the ceremony from him, but then their friendship was meaningless in the face of her loyalty to the Order. As a friend, he could trust her not to outright lie to him, but as a priestess, he could be certain that she would keep things from him. The Order had secrets upon secrets upon secrets.

He caught her eye and nodded his head slightly to indicate she should come to him. Her arms unfolded and Yunho could see her droop in a full body sigh.

“Is there a problem?’ he asked when she reached him.

Boa narrowed her eyes slightly. “Not a _problem_ ,” she answered, stressing the last word

Yunho raised an eyebrow, “But something?”

She looked around them and stepped closer to Yunho. It’s a physical closeness that would usually be considered rude but for this girl Yunho had known since he was five it was an indicator that she needed to say something she didn’t want overheard.

“Jaejoong had an unexpected reaction to the treatment,” Boa said, voice low.

In private Yunho’s eyes would have widened in alarm but this room was full of predators who would pounce on the slightest indication that something was wrong so he controlled the reaction, face remaining stoic. “What kind of reaction?” 

The treatment was a series of injections for gene modification. They would give Jaejoong the enhancements that nobles were born with and allow him to bond with Yunho. If there was a problem that would affect the bonding process then Yunho needed to know.

“It’s nothing to be concerned about, I’ve already made the necessary adjustments. It won’t affect the ceremony.”

Kangin, who’d been silently observing their conversation, spoke up at that. “Then what’s wrong with those two?” he asked waving towards where Woohyun and Key were watching the four of them, looking one step away from full blown panic. “If there’s no problem, why are they so freaked?”

“Because they are idiots,” Boa snapped, glaring at him.

The two of them hadn’t gotten along since Boa left to join the Order at fifteen. Sometimes Yunho thought Kangin was the one who had been engaged to be married to Boa and not Yunho with the way he behaved towards her but then Kangin had never been able to tolerate what he considered betrayal. Boa was supposed to marry Yunho after they’d both found an Honored Spouse but she’d never wanted to be second to anyone and couldn’t tolerate the idea of being forced into not one but two unwanted marriages so she had joined the Order.

Kangin considered it abandonment.

Boa continued, “They tried to hide it but they’re young and stupid. No harm was done.”

“Maybe not this time but what about next time?” Yunho said, voice cold. He would have had them killed if they had been anyone’s acolytes but Boa’s. He would not tolerate anyone putting his Jaejoong in danger, whether intentionally or by negligence.

Boa looked back at Yunho. “I’m educating them. Thoroughly.”

He held her gaze for a moment and nodded at the resolve he saw in her eyes. It satisfied him for the moment but he wouldn’t leave Jaejoong in their care in the future. “What kind of adjustment?”

“There was an anomaly in his DNA. I had to make a small tweak to the formula.”

“What kind of anomaly?” Yunho asked. Jaejoong wasn’t any kind of noble. His DNA should read as pure human.

“I’ll explain after the ceremony. We need to go now. It isn’t anything that will affect your bonding.”

Yunho wanted to insist that she explain everything now but she was right. It was time for them to go. The first group was preparing for transport. Yunho would be in the last group to go down but there weren’t so many guests that it would be much longer before he needed to go. The look he gave Boa before pulling up his hood let her know that he would be expecting a full explanation when they came back to the ship.

Boa nodded and walked back to her nervous acolytes. As a priestess of the order she would need to go down earliest. He watched with slitted eyes as the three of them stepped onto to the disc and dematerialized. Boa had better pray to the Ancestors that this ‘anomaly’ wouldn’t effect his bonding. Friend or not, he’d hunt her down to the ends of the universe if something went wrong that she could have prevented or warned him about.

A light tug on the sleeve of his robe pulled Yunho out of his thoughts. “Are you okay?” Junsu asked, hand clenching black fabric, eyes still pointed to the ground. 

Yunho face relaxed into a smile. “I’m fine,” he replied in an echo of Junsu’s earlier response to a similar question. The words were as much of a mistruth from Yunho’s mouth as they had been from Junsu’s. He was most assuredly not fine, but that was a matter to deal with after the ceremony.

Yunho took Junsu’s hand in his and the grip on his robe relaxed. He held Junsu’s hand out to Kangin. “Stay with Kangin. Don’t wander off.”

Junsu nodded his obedience, not making a sound of protest when Yunho’s hand was replaced with the larger man’s. It was worrying in a part of Yunho’s mind, but it was a part he refused to spend too much time thinking about. Junsu’s docility wasn’t abnormal by any means, a tempering in temper was a natural part of bonding for the non noble member of a bonding pair, and it was even less so because from what he could tell Junsu hadn’t been an aggressive person before he’d bonded with Changmin. Junsu’s behavior simply rubbed Yunho wrong because he’d never spent so much time with an Honored Spouse this early in a bonding and he was probably affected more than he would have been if this had been anyone other than Changmin’s Honored Spouse.

Yunho gave Kangin a hard look that said _watch him, if anything happens to him I will kill you_. Kangin nodded in acknowledgment and pulled Junsu to the Disk. Yunho would see him executed if he let anything happen to Junsu. Kangin might have been one of Yunho’s nearest and dearest friends but Junsu was Changmin’s and Changmin was…

He was Changmin and being Changmin was more important than being anyone or anything else to Yunho.

-

Yunho flexed his hands as he rematerialized, an involuntary reflex to make sure his parts were still working. Teleportation by disc happened in less than the blink of an eye and was, for the most part, perfectly safe but it was unnatural and for someone whose genetic ancestors had the ability to teleport through their own energy it _felt_ unnatural, like being stretched across space and snapped back together again.

They had landed in a a large clearing surrounded by tall dense trees on all sides except the place where water a rush of water fell over a ledge of rock, behind which a line of black robed figures disappeared. In the distance Yunho could see a mountain range, large cones of stone decorated with greenery and capped with white snow. It was a rare sight. The Imugi planets were some of the few places in the Dragon System untouched by industrial development. Members of the Order were the primary residents of the planets, caretakers of their history. Outsiders, as the Order referred the everyone else, were only allowed on the surface on special occasions, like the wedding of the Prince of Dragons. 

Behind the waterfall was a narrow, down sloping passage, the arches of the passage lit with synthetic blue lights. The journey through the tunnel was brief, leading to a large underground lake, one of the mating places of the giant serpents that had once inhabited the planet. The surface of the lake looked like a collection of small pools separated by stone pathways, but these pathways were a modification made to the interior of the cavern. Underneath them the lake was one continuous body of water. Black robed wedding guests were spreading themselves along these pathways, only avoiding a pool near the center of the cavern.

This pool, much larger than the others, was modified with a narrow bridge leading to a large circular platform and stone altar in the center of the pool. Jaejoong’s body was lying naked on the platform with a man standing behind it. The black robes with silver trimming and dragon embroidered on his chest marked him as a high priest of the Order of the Dragon. Two assistants in similar but less elaborately designed robes stood on either side of him, each holding a small, rectangular glass box. Around the edges of the cavern stood other members of the Order. Yunho knew Boa was somewhere in that circle, although, he couldn’t identify her by sight, each member resembling the others in their robes, with only height and body shape to differentiate them. 

Yunho crossed the bridge to stand opposite the High Priest in front of Jaejoong. He scanned his eyes over the body of the boy he had Chosen.

He looked dead

Not sleeping. Not unconscious. Dead.

Under normal circumstances he should have been able to see the slow rise and fall of Jaejoong’s chest indicating the boy was still breathing but there was no movement. Yunho wondered if this was part of the ‘unexpected reaction’ Boa had spoken of earlier, but he didn’t have time to follow the thought as the High Priest had raised his arms up in a call for silence.

No one had been speaking but Yunho could hear the silence growing. Cloth stopped ruffling. Feet stopped shuffling. Bodies stopped moving. The lack of sound was deafening.

“We have gathered here in the place of our Ancestors birth to observe a sacred rite,” the high priest spoke with exceptional gravitas. “It is here where our people first became Dragons and it is here where we will birth another Dragon to share our history, our culture, and our blood.”

Yunho tuned the priest out. It was the standard phrase used to begin a royal wedding in the Dragon system. The other systems had variations of the same, all involving talk of ancestors and sacredness. Yunho had witnessed the weddings of royals in other systems twice before. Shortly after his completion of the military academy he had accompanied his father to the wedding of Prince Jihoon of the Tiger system. Another time shortly before he began his Selection Journey, he had attended the wedding of Princess Minzy in the Chimera system.

“Yunho, Prince of Dragons, are you prepared to accept the responsibility of an Honored Spouse? To care for him, nurture him, and protect him? To guide him in the ways of the Dragon?”

“I am prepared,” he answered.

The words were a joke. They were a necessity dictated by tradition but they didn’t mean anything. Honored Spouse was just a pretty label. If he were a different sort of prince, Yunho could bond with Jaejoong today and never speak to him another day in his life if he chose to. He could keep Jaejoong as a sex slave, nothing more than chattel in his home, only needing to ensure that the boy looked perfect when he appeared in public. He could lock him away never to be seen again by anyone outside of the royal family. It was Yunho’s political aspirations and his own honest character that would keep him from treating Jaejoong so poorly. The High Priest wouldn’t know either way how Yunho had chosen to treat his Honored Spouse but then it didn’t really matter much to the Order. Their job was to ensure the continuation of the genetic line, not to police whether or not nobles treated their spouses properly.

The High Priest turned to one of the assistants and opened the glass box. He lifted a long thin crystal dagger Yunho knew from experience was laced with a drug to stir Jaejoong back to consciousness, or something resembling consciousness. The High Priest held the dagger over Jaejoong’s chest and rammed it down into his heart.

It wouldn’t do Jaejoong any damage. Over the past week Jaejoong would have already developed the accelerated healing characteristic of Dragons. It was always the first ability developed during the transformation and the reason why weddings took place a week after a royal had Chosen instead of immediately.

Jaejoong woke with a gasp, his back arching off the altar before dropping back down. His eyes were blackened, pupils blown wide obscuring his irises. He didn’t speak and he didn’t make any movement beyond his initial reaction. 

He still looked dead.

When the High Priest pulled the dagger out of Jaejoong’s chest it came out clean, as if it hadn’t just pierced through flesh and blood. The hole in Jaejoong’s chest where it had gone in closed quickly, leaving behind unmarked skin. 

The High Priest placed the dagger back in it’s box and turned to the second acolyte. He removed a small vile of clear liquid from the second box and placed it on the altar near Jaejoong’s head. He then folded his hands in front of him and took a step back from the altar.

The next part of the ceremony was Yunho’s. He found the entire thing distasteful if interesting but he wouldn’t be considered married without doing it.

Yunho pulled back the hood of his robe and slowly unhooked the clasps over his chest, undoing enough of them to be able to easily slip the robe off his shoulders letting it slide down to the floor. 

Naked, he climbed onto the altar, moving Jaejoong’s legs to settle himself between them. He picked up the small bottle the priest had left and uncapped it. The liquid he poured out into his palm flowed like water but it stuck to his hands leaving a thin glistening coat. He put the bottle down and and placed his hands on Jaejoong’s face. Yunho’s vision blurred, Jaejoong and all the wedding guests fading away.

Etherica was a psychic enhancer used to amplify the powers Dragons had inherited from their Ancestors. Mostly it was used as a bond facilitator for although most Dragons could claim at least a small skill in one of the psychic arts, there were very few who had the ability to walk in another person’s mindscape under their own power. Etherica helped with this, opening the centers of the brain where these abilities came from. It worked well enough that a Dragon could easily walk through the mind of a species that was for all intents and purposes psy null.

When his vision cleared, Yunho found himself in the same cavern, standing on the banks of one large lake. The pathways and platforms were gone. And although there was no lighting along the walls of the cavern the way there was in the physical world the entire place was brighter than it had been. There was a glow emanating from the lake illuminating the cavern. Lines of blue, green, and white lights streaked under the surface of the water. A closer look revealed the lights were in fact large water serpents.

Imugi.

Yunho had never seen one in person before. They were extinct. 

Well, not extinct exactly, more _evolved_. When the Ancestors had come to this planet and the others like it they had been a dying race. The Imugi had saved them, merging with the bipedal creatures that had invaded their lands. It was from these creatures that Dragons obtained their superior strength and psychic gifts.

Yunho wondered if this was what all Dragons saw when they bonded, surely if it was someone would have spoken of it. The sight was—

“Beautiful aren’t they?”

Yunho looked to the side where the voice had come from. Jaejoong was sitting cross legged at his feet watching the lights dance around each other, a wistful smile on his face. Occasionally two of the serpents would twist their bodies around each other resulting in a blending of colors. When this happened Jaejoong’s lips would curl up in a radiant smile.

Yes, Yunho thought, beautiful.

Jaejoong turned away from the lake to gaze up at Yunho with large brown eyes. “What took you so long?”

Yunho huffed in amusement, raising one eyebrow. “Me?”

“Yes.” Jaejoong’s smile fell away forming a soft pout. “I’ve been cold and lonely here for days.”

The words should have alarmed Yunho — humans undergoing the transformation weren’t supposed to spend days in the mindscape, at most Jaejoong should have been here for a few hours — but all he could think about at the moment was how beautiful Jaejoong looked.

“You haven’t enjoyed the company?”

Jaejoong’s gaze was drawn back to the Imugi dancing in the lake. “They’re beautiful but they’re not you.” 

The words were sad and longing, pulling at Yunho’s heart. Yunho knelt on the ground behind Jaejoong and wrapped his arms around the boy’s torso pulling Jaejoong back to settle against his chest. “I’m sorry.” He kissed the side of Jaejoong’s neck. “I’m here now. You’ll never be alone again.”

Jaejoong rested his hands on top of Yunho’s. “How can you be sure?”

Yunho squeezed him gently and tucked his chin over Jaejoong’s shoulder pressing their cheeks together. “Aren’t you mine?” he asks. “Isn’t your body mine? Your mind mine? Your soul mine?”

Jaejoong ran his fingers over Yunho’s arms and turned his head to nuzzle his nose against Yunho’s cheek. “Yes,” he answered. “Yours.”

At the sound of those words Yunho felt something locking into place in his mind. It was a warm rush of contentment that wasn’t his, the feeling of thoughts and emotions that weren’t his rushing over him. No one ever said it would feel like this, all soothing warmth. They talked about how the tether would allow him absolute control over his spouse, how it would prevent Jaejoong from acting against him, how it would allow him to know and manipulate Jaejoong’s thoughts, but nothing of what it would feel like to have another person’s conscious attached to his own, nothing of the single minded focus he felt coming from Jaejoong, love and devotion echoing through the bond.

Not even Changmin had warned him. The other man had always shifted uncomfortably whenever Yunho brought the subject up. Now he knew why. It was humbling to know that someone felt this way about him and he briefly wondered how Changmin could stand being away from Junsu. Yunho felt like he would kill anyone who tried to separate him from Jaejoong. He wondered briefly how some people could stand to abuse their spouses the way they did if this was what they felt from them all the time.

He chastised himself for the thought. It was naive and Yunho knew better than that. There were all sorts of people in the universe, most of them no where near as honorable as he was. He had met men and women who would revel in the idea that no matter how badly they beat or used a person that their love for them — even manufactured as it was — would never falter. He swore then that he would never treat Jaejoong so disrespectfully, never let him become one those Honored Spouses who looked at their abusers with helpless devotion, unaware that anything was even wrong with their relationship.

He turned Jaejoong around and pressed their mouths together, pushing the boy down onto the ground. He sealed his lips over Jaejoong’s, licking inside like it belonged to him — and it did now — and it was perfect.

Until it wasn't.

The pain jolted him out of the mindscape, a stroke of fire running through his spine pulling him out of Jaejoong's mind, Jaejoong's perfect, beautiful mind — _Mine, mine, mine_ , Yunho thought — and back to reality, where he was lying on top of Jaejoong, moth attached to his the way it had been in the mindscape. Only this Jaejoong wasn’t vibrant and alive, eyes full of warmth and devotion, he was still the paralyzed shell he was when Yunho first merged their minds, immobile and blackened eyes dead like the night sky without stars. His skin was cold, burning, burning so hot felt cold. It was wrong, shouldn't have been happening that way but Yunho didn't have time to worry about that. Not when the the bright light of phaser gun fire was illuminating the cavern over his head and robed figures were rushing about around him. He spared a quick thought for his family but didn’t dwell on it, they were not his priority.

Yunho quickly shoved his arms under Jaejoong, ignoring the way his arms scraped against the stone, it was an irritant and nothing more, pulling Jaejoong's body tight against his and rolling them off the side of the altar opposite the entrance to the cavern. His back collided with the ground with a thud, the impact made harder by the dead weight of Jaejoong's body crashing on top of his. He was rolling Jaejoong's body off of his when Kangin slid next to him pulling Junsu behind him. Yunho couldn't help but notice that Junsu looked more alive than he ever had in the months since he and Changmin separated. Another wrong, but that was another thing he couldn't deal with at the moment.

"What happened?" He asked Kangin, crouching naked and gathering Jaejoong’s body into a ball in front of his

"We had some party crashers drop in for the free show," Kangin answered, wiggling his eye brows, and staring pointedly at Yunho’s crotch.

Yunho lips turned down in irritation but Kangin behavior wasn't any kind of surprise. He made light of serious situations when it was entirely inappropriate, but that was just the way Kangin was. Yunho might not have appreciated it now, not when Jaejoong might be harmed. Yunho had to take care of Jaejoong, he belonged to Yunho — _Mine, mine, mine_ — but he had been thankful for it in the past when they'd gotten themselves in some trouble or other and Kangin smart mouth had distracted someone enough to get them out of it. It was the only reason he didn't shoot Kangin when the other man handed a gun to him with a shit eating grin on his face.

Yunho peered around the side of the alter, gun prepped at the ready in one hand. "Shit," he said as a laser bolt grazed over his cheek. It barely stung and he could already feel his skin pulling back together tight over the cut. 

“What now?”

Yunho didn’t know what to tell Kangin. His mind raced through a hundred scenarios all coming up with _dead Jaejoong, dead Junsu._

He and Kangin would have been able to make it out of the cavern on their own but not without Junsu, who despite the small sparks of fire in his eyes still sat where Kangin had put him with his back against the altar like a pet told to sit and stay, or with Jaejoong, who couldn't even move under his own influence, getting hit by phaser fire. And while they had both had their genetic makeup altered to resemble that of an imperial noble they were both still fundamentally _human_. They would able to heal from a few hits but the light show above their heads indicated they would not be able to make it back to the disc without sustaining more damage than either of their bodies would be able to handle, assuming the Paradise hadn’t been compromised. Yunho wouldn’t risk Jaejoong to that and Changmin would never forgive him for it either. 

He stared contemplatively over the edge of the platform. These waters ran deep and he was sure they’d be able to lose the enemy in them, but he didn’t know enough about the layout of this planet to know how long it would take to to find one of the other caverns, or if they’d even be able to. They couldn’t breathe under water indefinitely. The Merging had combined the best aspects of the Imugi and the Ancestor’s but their new species wasn’t designed to function under water for extended periods of time. Dragons could survive for days if need be but eventually they would drown, it would take Junsu and Jaejoong less time than that. He cursed the Order and their need to keep secrets even from the royal families. 

Maybe specifically from the royal families, a voice in the back of his mind whispered. 

Yunho clamped down on the suggestion. The Order was secretive, not disloyal. He couldn’t afford to have thoughts like that running through his head. That sort of thinking started as a seed and grew into a tree with roots so deep he’d never be able to get rid of it. Those types of thoughts were what had started the last great war.

But they couldn’t stay where they were, it was too exposed and would get all four of them killed, or worse, captured. 

And just when Yunho was preparing to tell Kangin that they’d have to take their chances in the water a dark haired head popped above the surface of the water on the side of the platform. 

“Get in,” Boa said, hands holding the side of the platform keeping her afloat.

A part of Yunho bristled at the order, he didn’t kid himself trying to think it was a suggestion.

“You can’t stay here,” she said when neither Kangin nor Yunho moved to follow her directions. “Get in and follow me.”

“Follow you where?” Kangin asked, incredulously, like he couldn’t believe Boa would think he would follow her anywhere.

The glare she gave him wasn’t any less fierce for the water droplets running down her face, making her look just that little bit softer. “We don’t have time for this. _Get in_.”

“You are crazy if you think—”

“Kangin, get in the water,” Yunho interrupted. Most days he was grateful for Kangin’s overprotectiveness, it had saved his life more than once, but sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth. Yunho knows it was not needed where Boa was concerned, she wouldn’t hurt him, not permanently anyways. Kangin’s distrust of her was an irrationality all going back to her perceived betrayal. He half expected the other man to argue with him, but there must have been something in Yunho’s tone of voice or on his face that had Kangin pursing his lips and pulling Junsu away from the altar, gently herding him over the side of the platform where Boa was waiting.

Yunho pulled Jaejoong into his arms then swung his legs over the side of the platform and scooting forward to drop into the water. Jaejoong’s added weight made it more difficult to stop from sinking but he’d been trained to tread water and swim with more than five times his own weight so it wasn’t too much of a problem. 

Boa pushed away from the platform and started swimming down. Yunho swung Jaejoong onto his back, wrapping the boy’s arms around his neck and holding them in place with one hand. He made sure Kangin had a firm grip on one of Junsu’s hands so they wouldn’t lose him before following her. 

The columns holding up the platforms on the lake were numerous and anchored far deeper than he could see, giving away their age. A similar structure built anytime in the last few hundred years wouldn’t need this kind of support to stay in place. 

The waters grew steadily darker the deeper they swam but Boa weaved her way through the maze of columns with ease, never once faltering in direction. These were dead waters, there was nothing alive in them, not like the lake Yunho had seen in Jaejoong’s mindscape. These waters had been dead for thousands of years.

They exited the maze to encounter what looked like the wall of a building, a building that didn’t appear anywhere on the surface of the planet. Boa pressed both her hands against one section of the wall. A panel opened up in the wall and a bright blue light scanned over her body. The light was jarring in the darkness and Yunho looked away, raising one hand to cover his eyes. 

When the light disappeared, he lowered his arm the see Boa swimming through a small circular entrance in the wide enough to fit at most two people a time. He followed her into a small compartment big enough to fit maybe ten people but no more. When Kangin and Junsu swam in after him Boa once again placed her hands on one of the chamber walls. Another light scanned her body and the entrance closed behind them, two doors sliding together with a rough griding noise. 

The doors locked together with a loud thud and and the floor of the chamber began to slide to the side. Water drained out of the chamber through grates in the floor, leaving them all standing on a mesh metal floor. He couldn’t see where the water went, it just looked like and endless drop under the chamber.

Yunho transfered Jaejoong back into his arms, one hand under his knees and the other under his back. It was easier to carry him this way when they were on dry land. Jaejoong’s head lolled back and Yunho was more worried than he had been this entire day. Jaejoong should have been awake and responding by now, but his body hanged like dead weight and there was still no sign of life in his eyes. Yunho wanted to ask Boa if this was a side effect of having their ceremony interrupted or part of the ‘unexpected reaction’ since they were no longer in immediate danger but she was already opening another panel in the wall.

This scan opened a doorway on the opposite side of the chamber from the way they had come in, two doors sliding open vertically from the top and bottom with another grinding noise, indicating infrequent use.

“What the hell is all this?”

Yunho wanted to ask the same question Kangin did.

Boa grabbed one of the short black cylinders mounted on the wall outside the door. “Escape passage. They’re all over the planet.” She cupped her hand over the bulbous end of the cylinder. It lit up, bright and blue, illuminating a long tunnel. “Come on.”

“And what does one of the most revered religious sects in the Empire need escape passages for?”

The look Boa gave Kangin was half glowering and half annoyed. “We weren’t always revered,” she said before starting down the tunnel.

That was true, Yunho thought, hiking Jaejoong up more firmly in his arms and following her. 

As the keepers and protectors of their genetic heritage, the various Orders were perhaps the most respected groups in the empire but they hadn’t always been. There had been a time when the ranks of the Orders had been filled with fanatics who advocated a return to the time before the Mergings. In and of itself that was not a bad idea, there were many nobles in the empire who would jump at the opportunity to transform themselves fully into the beings who had contributed to the changes in their DNA, but these so called Fundamentalists hadn’t wanted to become what they had half been changed into, thus preserving the species that had sacrificed their lives to save their Ancestors. They had wanted strip the DNA of all nobility of everything that was _foreign_ and return them to what they had been when their ships had first ventured into this galaxy from lands too distant to remember. They had wanted to strip them of all their gained strength, intelligence, and unnatural abilities, to make them lesser.

The System Lords had gone to war against the Orders to purge them of the Fundamentalist sects. It had been a long and bloody struggle, with casualties numbered in the trillions on both sides. 

“These tunnels served as a hiding place during the Purge when your kind turned against us.”

Kangin snorted. “Our kind? You are our kind.”

Boa said nothing.


	2. Hybrid Theory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be handwavy pseudoscience. Sometime in the future (hopefully within the next month) I'll post an Appendix of people, places, and technology for you guys.

There was more than just tunnels hidden under the surface of Imugi III. Boa’s escape tunnels were only one part of an underground complex that from what Yunho could tell may very well have extended all over the planet. The surface of Imugi III remained free of development but the Order had obviously been busy building below the surface. After leaving the chamber they had first entered into Boa led them through the tunnels to an elevator that looked like it had seen frequent use. It had only been one of many they had passed, indicating a building complex far more complex than a hiding place.

Secrets, Yunho thought as their small group fit into the cylindrical box that opened up after Boa pressed her hand to a panel under a reading of DS-E. The walls of the elevator were solid metal on all sides, disallowing Yunho to see anything they might pass by. Boa pressed a series of buttons in what looked to be an activation code of some sort and the elevator started shooting downward.

No one built elevators anymore. The same technology used for the transporter discs could be replicated on a smaller scale to allow travel inside buildings. How long would this elevator have had to be here? 

Yunho supposed a person could argue that the Order built their refuge using the older technology in an attempt to confuse anyone who might be pursuing them - there weren’t many people alive who would know how to use an old elevator - but if these tunnels really were intended for escape, the Order would have wanted to be able to flee as quickly and as efficiently as possible. A transporter would have been more practical.

No, it was more likely that this underground complex had been built before the development of the transporter as a viable travel option. It would have had to have been built in a time before the development of hyperspace travel, back when it took ships years to travel between planets and decades to travel between galaxies. It would have to have been built thousands of years ago. Before the Purge. These tunnels might have served as a refuge for the Order during the Purge but they hadn’t been built with that intended purpose.

Yunho pulled his Jaejoong closer to his body, shifting his spouse away from Boa. “Escape tunnels, huh?” he said to Boa.

She didn’t turn to face him when she answered but he could see her face pulling tight out of the corner of his eye, lips pursing and jaw stiffening. “Yes.”

Secrets upon secrets upon secrets.

Boa stopped the elevator at a floor designated DS-44. The elevator doors opened to a cacophony of sound, shouts from every direction and the tell tale sound of ship engines revving. DS-44 was a large docking bay filled with hundreds ships of all shapes and sizes. There were people rushing about in every direction, directing the loading of supply boxes and shuffling people onto shuttles. 

“What have _you people_ been hiding?”

The question was as snarky as it was genuinely curious, Kangin mockingly acquiescing to Boa’s earlier sentiments of her being different from them.

“Nothing I’m sure you don’t hide on Belara,” Boa answered.

“ _We_ don’t hide.” Kangin said.

“Of course not.”

Yunho let out a frustrated grunt. “What happened to not having time for this?” Yunho loved them both, he really did. He enjoyed their not so friendly banter but there was something very wrong with his Jaejoong and he needed answers now, answers he was going to pry out of Boa’s mind even if he had to tie her down until he could reunite with Changmin and let his friend rip through her mind.

“We don’t,” Boa said. “I need to get you out of here, all four of you.” She canvassed the area quickly, eyes darting around until she found something. “This way.” She said and shot off into the crowd.

Kangin shrugged sheepishly in apology before following her, still holding onto Junsu’s hand to drag him along.

Yunho didn’t like this blind following they were doing, it didn’t sit right with him when he was the one who was usually in control, but he trusted that Boa wasn’t leading them into danger and that when she said it wasn’t safe for them here that she meant she wanted to help them find safety. For now he needed her. Later, they would see.

Yunho pressed his Jaejoong to his body more tightly and ran after them. 

Boa led them to a mid sized ship where Woohyun was waving his arms around frantically to flag them down. The ship was much smaller than the Paradise, but bigger than the shuttles used to ferry passengers between orbiting ships and planet surfaces. The ship was ugly, all hard angles and none of the sleekness of the Gamma class starships Yunho was used to being on, but most likely it and many of the others in the bay had been designed for functionality and not aesthetics the way the Paradise had been.

“Supplies?” Boa asked her acolyte as they walked up the ramp open in the back of the ship.

Woohyun nodded his head. “All ready to go.”

“And the other thing?”

“We’re good to go.” Woohyun said, holding one hand with his thumb sticking up. “Key nearly shot Jinwoon over this ship, but we got her,” he said patting the hull of the ship affectionately. “Best med facilities of all the Gamma class ships we’ve got.”

Boa gave him a look of approval far different from the annoyed looks she’d been shooting at her acolytes earlier in the day. “Good.”

Woohyun beamed, nearly bouncing up on the balls of his feet at the praise.

“Go get them settled,” she said gesturing to Kangin and Junsu. She ran her eyes over Junsu’s frame critically. “Make sure he’s okay.”

Woohyun nodded and saluted her before asking Kangin and Junsu to follow him and brought them into a transporter. The three of them disappeared from view.

Boa then turned to Yunho. She lifted up one of Jaejoong’s wrists and frowned at whatever she felt. “We need to get him to medical.” She herded him towards a transporter at the other end of the cargo hold. The doors shut. “Medbay,” she said while placing her hand on the activation panel. 

The transporter doors were opening again in no time at all. They exited into a decent sized medical ward. It was the right size for a ship meant only to hold a few dozen people, containing only a few beds, but was outfitted with the most advanced medical equipment in the empire, a decompression chamber, a few stasis pods, a cryostasis chamber, glass cabinets full of what looked like a sample of every drug designed to treat a Dragon and all equipment needed for on the spot surgery.

Boa went over to the wall holding the cylindrical cryostasis chamber and swiped a few panels on it’s side. The tube started turning until it was lying horizontal and a translucent blue liquid rushed into the chamber. When the chamber was a little more than half filled Boa swiped at the panels again and the glass facing the ceiling pulled open, the top side of tube seeming to curl into the bottom until an opening large enough to place a body was left.

“Quick, put him in.”

Yunho tightened his grip on his Jaejoong. “You want to put him in stasis?” Was whatever was wrong with his Jaejoong that bad? Cryostasis was used as a last resort to preserve a body too injured for readily available medical practices to be of any use. The body was cryogenically frozen, in effect slowing further tissue decay, until it could be gotten proper attention. Why did she want to put his Jaejoong in stasis? Boa said whatever was wrong was nothing to worry about.

A fury was starting to build up in Yunho. He had trusted her enough to believe his Jaejoong would be fine. He would see her suffer for this. And those two incompetents that called themselves her acolytes.

“Not into stasis,” Boa said before Yunho did anything extreme. “He’s burning too hot, we need to shock his system in the other direction. The cryofluid is the only thing we have available cold enough to do that. I’m not trying to put him into stasis, I won’t start the stasis protocols but if we don’t cool him down, he’s going to burn from the inside out.”

Yunho searched her face for signs of deception. Boa stared back at him, eyes hard and unwavering, daring him to challenge her. Yunho would have smiled at her in any other situation. He really did like Boa despite her secret keeping, she didn’t put up with any of his crap or compromise on what needed to be done, she was like Changmin that way. Yunho wondered briefly what life would have been like if their paths hadn’t diverged so extremely. No doubt the empire should be grateful that they hadn’t been united in marriage. There wouldn’t have been any of this political maneuvering. With the combined force of Boa’s uncompromising pragmatism, Changmin’s intelligence, and Yunho’s sheer bloodymindedness when it came to doing what he thought was the right thing, the three of them could probably have overthrown the Emperor himself.

Yunho nodded and and carried his Jaejoong to the cryostasis chamber. He shifted his hold on the boy and lowered him gently into the cryofluid.

The reaction was immediate. His Jaejoong screamed and his limbs flailed, sloshing cryofluid over the sides of the tube.

“Hold him down.” Boa pressed down on his Jaejoong’s legs to stop them from kicking up out of the chamber. 

Yunho pushed his Jaejoong’s shoulders down as the boy tossed his head from side to side and screamed louder. His Jaejoong’s fingers wrapped around the sides of the tube and arched his back to leverage himself against the hands trying to hold him down. 

Yunho pushed down harder. Keeping his Jaejoong from escaping was more difficult to hold him down than he thought it would be. Dragons were physically stronger than most other peoples in the empire but his Jaejoong shouldn’t be developing any of that extra strength yet and he should never have developed enough to make it this difficult for Yunho to hold him down. He leaned forward putting the weight of his body into the strength of his hold.

His Jaejoong struggled harder, screams growing ever louder. It pulled at something in Yunho to see his Jaejoong suffering this way but he didn’t want to see him suffer more in the future because Yunho wasn’t strong enough to help him so Yunho ignored the pleading he could see in the eyes that were full of fury and fire looking anything but dead and empty and squeezed down harder.

“What the fuck!”

Yunho looked up to see Kangin standing in front of the transporter looking shocked.

“Don’t just stand there, come help!” Boa yelled at him, her voice belaying her struggle to hold his Jaejoong down.

Kangin pulled himself out of his shock and rushed over to the cryostasis chamber. He pried his Jaejoong’s fingers off the sides of the tube and pressed his hands down into the cryofluid.

“Put his head under!”

Yunho didn’t think twice before following the direction. He moved one hand to the center of his Jaejoong’s chest and put the other to his Jaejoong’s forehead and pushed down hard. 

Bubbles escaped his Jaejoong’s nose and mouth as his head was submerged. His thrashing continued for a few minutes before growing weaker and weaker until his eyes slid shut and his limbs went still.

Yunho ran his fingers through his Jaejoong’s hair as it fanned out around his head, before taking his hands out of the cryofluid.

“What the fuck was that?” Kangin asked panting as he slumped over the tube looking at his Jaejoong like he was the strangest thing he’d ever laid his eyes on.

Boa was fiddling with the display on the chamber again. The blue fluid took on a purple tint. 

“The sedative will keep him asleep for a few days, give his body some time to stabilize itself.”

Yunho didn’t like the way Boa was looking at his Jaejoong, like he was a particularly fascinating subject of study, or worse, an experiment. What would she do with his Jaejoong if left to her own devices? What would she do if she had found him before Yunho had Chosen him? Would she have whisked him off to some secret laboratory and ran tests on him to her heart’s content? 

Yunho felt a wave of fury threaten to overcome him at the thought. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself but couldn’t shake the speculation of where his Jaejoong would be if Yunho wasn’t around to protect him.

A priestess was after all, first and foremost a scientist. Oh they called themselves healers but it that was just a pretty euphemism. They were geneticists who often hid behind the shield of religion to justify their actions, questionable and morally ambiguous as they were at times. Keepers of the Ancestral Legacy. The description was true enough, but they were more than that as had been proven to Yunho today. Secrets and lies. 

He watched Boa go over to one of the cabinets and pull out two pieces of white cloth. She balled them up together and tossed them at Yunho without looking at him. “Put those on.”

Yunho caught the cloth effortlessly and unfolded it. It was the white shirt and slacks patients wore. His nudity had barely registered while he was busy making sure his Jaejoong reached safety. It didn’t bother him now, he was comfortable with his body, and he gave a brief thought to the idea that he should just stay naked if it bothered Boa enough that she wanted him clothed but decided to spare her sensibilities. They had always been rather delicate when it came to nudity for the sake of nudity. Give her a naked man bleeding out and she was more stoic than the Emperor himself but take that same naked man and have him lounging around just because he wanted to and she tensed up like a Tiger facing a Dragon. 

The clothes weren’t the fancy or even relatively comfortable but Yunho didn’t need either of those things. They fit well enough and he could move easily in them. That was really all that mattered.

“I say again, what the fuck was that?” Kangin was still looking at his Jaejoong like he’d never seen anything like him before but the look didn’t bother Yunho the way Boa’s did. Kangin wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt his Jaejoong.

Boa came back over to his Jaejoong’s cryostasis tube and leaned over his Jaejoong’s body. She tilted her head from one side to the other studying his Jaejoong’s face. “Anomaly,” she said and Yunho could hear the _fascinating_ echoing in her voice. 

Damn it all. He’d jettison her off this ship to stop her from looking at his Jaejoong like she wanted to dissect him piece by ever more beautiful piece but he still needed to know about this anomaly and how it would affect his Jaejoong in the future. Would he require frequent medical attention? If so Yunho had to keep Boa around. As little as he trusted her with his Jaejoong, he trusted the rest of the Order even less. None of them had any reason to even feign loyalty to Yunho.

As if she sensed the homicidal thoughts Yunho was having towards her, Boa straightened up and cleared her throat. “Time for explanations.” She closed the tube over his Jaejoong and then sat down at one of the tables in the room. She pulled a chain out of her shirt and unhooked the spherical pendant hanging off of it. 

Yunho caressed his Jaejoong’s hair one more time and pulled Kangin away from the cryostasis tube to join Boa at the table. As he came closer he saw that the pendent was actually a data sphere smaller than the nail on his little finger. 

Boa rolled the data sphere to the center of the table and pressed her palm down over it. The surface of the table lit up around her hand and a holographic display popped up over the table, two ribbons wrapped around each other, one red and one blue, kept from touching by horizontal bars connecting them together. They were interspersed with small colored spheres spread along the chains. Boa took her hand of the square and waved it through the air in front of the image. The structure began to rotate, showing all its angles and details.

“You both know what this is.”

“Human DNA chain,” Yunho said. 

“And this one.” Boa swiped her hand across the table and another image popped up. It looked near identical to the first image in shape but it had a black ribbon instead of blue and a few of the spheres and linking chains were in different places. 

“Dragon DNA chain,” Kangin said crossing his arms over his chest.

The answers were simple enough. Every Dragon learned basic genetics as a child, indeed every noble in the empire did. The royal families would say it was in order to prepare them for servitude in the Order if that was the path they chose but really it was so that they would know they were different from the humans who lived in their territories, so they would know they were better. ___Superior_.

“And this one?” Boa asked after another swipe. The image that popped up in between the two different DNA chains looked like a blend of both, one red ribbon and one that was a blend of black and blue. It was familiar but not quite right.

"Emerging Dragon," Kangin answered confidently.

Emerging Dragon was the term used to describe those who had undergone the gene therapy to rewrite their genetic base code but who hadn't yet completed the full transformation into a Dragon. Honored Spouses like Jaejoong and Junsu whose bodies hadn't fully stabilized were considered Emerging Dragons.

Kangin's guess was good one but not an accurate one. There were some subtle differences between an emerging Dragons DNA and the DNA they were looking at now. This was something Yunho had never seen before.

"Close, but not quite," Boa said. She pulled up another image, this one closer in resemblance to the middle image than either of the other two. "This is an emerging Dragon. This," she pointed to the third image, "is your Jaejoong's DNA. "

"What's your point? It looks like acceptable variation after the start of the Transformation." Yunho asked. The fact that his Jaejoong's DNA closely resembled that of an Emerging Dragon wasn't anything special. It wasn't the exact DNA sequences they learned to recognize as the start of the transformation but every person was different and their DNA changed a little differently during the months the transformation process took. It didn't matter, they all ended up in the same place, as full Dragons. His Jaejoong's DNA didn't look different enough to be cause for concern, not different enough to be called an _anomaly_.

Boa nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes. It's acceptable variation during the Transformation but this isn't during the Transformation." She looked Yunho in the eye. " This is Jaejoong's DNA before the gene therapy. This is what it looked like when he was first broth to me. This is the anomaly."

"What the fuck?"

Yunho almost echoed Kangin's sentiment. What the fuck indeed. This couldn't be his Jaejoong's DNA before they started his treatments. This would mean that his Jaejoong was a Partial Dragon, a natural Partial Dragon.

It wasn't possible. Partial Dragons did not exist. Previous attempts to create them ended in death for both the mother and the child. This was fact. It was the reason Honored Spouses were Transformed. Humans could not have children with Dragons. Their hybrid offspring were not viable.

"Are you lying to me?" Yunho really would kill her this time if she was fucking with him.

"No," Boa said her voice steady.

"How?" Yunho asked. 

"I don't know."

The fuck she didn't know. Secrets and lies. "Boa."

"I don't know," she said again.

Yunho clenched his fingers in a fist under the table. "You tweaked a formula for something you don't know?"

Boa shook her head. "I’m good at what I do but I swear to you I don't know how he exists."

Secrets and motherfucking lies.

"I don't know how he exists or where he comes from."

Because his Jaejoong would have had to come from somewhere other than that tiny little planet wouldn't he? The boy would have to be more than the son of a merchant.

"If the Order has any knowledge on hybrids or partials they aren't sharing, not even with their own people. This-" she ran a hand through her hair and grunted in frustration. " _If_ the Order knows and _if_ he’s actually a hybrid. You'd have to be an Adept to be privy to this kind of shit."

Yunho believed her. Boa didn't curse. She'd have to have been thrown for one hell of a loop for the profanity to cross her lips. And what she said made sense. The Priests and Priestesses Adept ran the Order. If anyone knew anything about something as potentially explosive as the existence of viable hybrids it would be the Adepts and they would hold that knowledge as tightly in their small circles of power as possible.

But it made Yunho wonder. He looked back at his Jaejoong lying peacefully in the cryotube. Was his Jaejoong a natural hybrid and if he was who were his real parents? Or was his Jaejoong an experiment, a small cluster of cells designed in a lab and grown until they formed a body and supported autonomous thought and action?

“Well, shit,” Kangin said, also staring at his Jaejoong.

Well shit summed up the situation just about right. If his Jaejoong was an experiment then who had lost him? How had they lost him? Were they looking for him? No, that was a stupid question. Of course they would be looking for him. Hybridization was _valuable_.

A better question: Who did Yunho have to burn to keep his Jaejoong safe?

“This is all speculation you understand. I can’t tell you anything for certain. Don’t start a war over speculation.”

Trust Boa to be the voice of reason. Yunho didn’t know what was showing on his face for Boa to say those words but if his face reflected the way he was feeling then Yunho could imagine it was a cross between possessiveness at anyone trying to take away _his_ Jaejoong and a determination to do harm.

He turned back to look at Boa and plastered a smile on his face. “Of course not,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage. “I’m not a War Lord.”

But he could be. If one single insignificant speck of a person so much as bent a single precious strand of hair on his Jaejoong’s head he would burn them out of existence.

Boa narrowed her eyes at him slightly. “No, you’re not.”

Yunho kept smiling. “And he’s fine?”

“Yes,” Boa said, her posture relaxing slightly. “He’s entirely healthy. His _uniqueness_ doesn’t seem to have caused any problems. No detectable diseases or defects. He’s fine. He’s better than fine, he’s near perfect.”

“Then why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

“I believe he’s suffering the effects of an incomplete bond.”

“There was something wrong with him _before_ I initiated the bond,” Yunho said remembering the way his Jaejoong lied unmoving on the altar. He’d been like the dead before Yunho had even entered his mindscape.

“He was already part Dragon when you found him. His reaction to the treatment we gave him was most likely an immune response reacting to a substance designed for full humans. It was easy enough for me to adjust the formula to something suited for a human already mid Transformation. He won’t have any other effects from that but unlike the way an Honored Spouse has their DNA completely rewritten, we’re pushing Jaejoong’s DNA to complete development into it’s full Dragon state. That takes far more energy and accounts for the extreme state of fatigue his body is in. He’ll wake up in a few days. There’s something else though.” Boa swiped across the table and the DNA chains disappeared. They were replaced with a series of images of brains. Each one had different sections pulsing bright and a series of flashes streaking across different paths to represent electrical impulses.

“This is a human brain and this is a Dragon brain,” she continued, pointing at the first image and then the second. “Dragon brains are bigger and more active. We use more mental power than regular humans in order to support our abilities.”

Yunho and Kangin both nodded along.

Boa pointed to the third and fourth images. “This one is an Emerging Dragon at the start of the bonding process and this one is a full Dragon’s.” Both images showed a section at the back of the brains shining like beacons in the night sky. This last one is Jaejoong’s brain the day after he arrived on the Paradise.”

The last image was a blend of the third and fourth. “How?” Yunho asked. He was already past the fact that as a Partial Dragon his Jaejoong would have already had a bonding center in his brain but it shouldn’t have been active until Yunho had entered his mindscape during the ceremony.

“As I said before, Jaejoong was already part Dragon. I believe his subconscious recognized your intention to bond with him and he formed a preliminary tether with you as a reaction to the stress his body was being put through with the first round of injections. We know born Dragons bonded to born Dragons can use the bond to sustain each other’s life force as a sort of survival mechanism. It’s possible Jaejoong instinctively latched onto you when his body was fighting the treatment. Self preservation. 

“But that partially bonded state isn’t sustainable. You’ll need to complete the bond as soon as he wakes up. Dragons have gone mad from having incomplete bonds. It would be dangerous for all of us to have Jaejoong in that state with the full potential of his abilities unlocked.”

More than dangerous, Yunho thought. Spontaneous bonds were rare. They required not only compatible minds but strong telepathic powers. The type of power people fought wars over.

“Needless to say, that’s information shouldn’t leave this room.”

Kangin pursed his lips. “Not going to tell your precious Order?”

Boa snapped at him. “I’m not actually trying to get you killed.”

“Enough.” Yunho stopped them before they could get into another fight. “I need to think.” He had been expecting a simple enough ceremony after which he would have an Honored Spouse and be somewhat further along in his political aspirations than he had been without an Honored Spouse. What he’d gotten was an interrupted marriage ceremony, what may or may not have been an assassination attempt, and a _hybrid_.

He needed to do more than think. He needed to talk to Changmin. But before that-

“Where are you planning to take us?” he asked Boa. “We can’t go back to the Paradise, it may be compromised.” And Yunho _still_ didn’t have any time to worry about his family. Less time now than he had when he’d been escaping phaser fire. But he assumed they would be fine. His father was a survivor.

“I told Key to set course to Imugi I. If there’s any information on who or what Jaejoong is that would be the best place to start.”

“No,” Yunho said. He knew he’d have to find out more about Jaejoong but he had a mission to complete, one he needed to finish before poking what could literally be a sleeping Dragon. He’d keep his Jaejoong safe and protected until then but he was going to need a lot more influence than what came with being the Prince of Dragons if he was going to start digging around the Order’s secret secrets. This only gave him more incentive to find all the pieces of the Artifact. He needed that egg more than ever now. “Take us to Crastica.” Yunho had a new ship and a crew to retrieve.


	3. Friends, Near and Distant

Yoochun slowed his hover bike as he neared the Kim family’s estate. He’d spent the past week away from the city on a family trip and was eager to see his best friend again. Yoochun hadn’t wanted to go with his parents and brother out to the middle of nowhere because he knew Jaejoong would be attending the dragon prince’s Selection Ball and he was dying to find out what it was like.

He knew Jaejoong had some unfavorable opinions about the whole thing but Jaejoong was paranoid and a pessimist. Besides it wasn’t like the ball affected Jaejoong’s life. He got to spend one evening partying with the other kids his age and maybe meet some royals other than the ones ruling their small planet. It was like getting the chance to attend an A-list celebrity’s birthday bash, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Yoochun wished he could have gone but his birthday was a few months too late and he was still considered too young.

He had wanted to stay with the Kims so he could grill Jaejoong for information as soon as the other boy got home but Yoochun’s parents had refused to let him skip out on their annual family bonding trip. Every year they insisted on dragging Yoochun and his brother, Yoohwan, off to some technologically backwards planet to ‘get back to their roots.’ There were no teleportation discs, no holovids, and no communication devices (unless you counted some clunky little device called a cellular phone that only let you talk to people on the same planet, which Yoochun did not) so he hadn’t spoken to Jaejoong since he’d left.

Yoochun rode through the laser grid gate leading to the Kim mansion, a fairly large but not ostentatious home. The guards let him through on sight, used to Yoochun’s comings and goings. Jaejoong’s house was practically Yoochun’s house. He parked his bike in the garage where Jaejoong and his siblings kept all their vehicles and ran up the stairs leading the the main house shouting Jaejoong’s name as loudly as possible.

He wasn’t expecting his friend to hear him if Jaejoong was in his bedroom but if he was lucky Jaejoong would be somewhere in the lower levels of the house and Yoochun would have to wait just a little less long to hear about the Selection Ball. He also wasn’t expecting the suspicious way the household staff was behaving.

Normally, if Yoochun was found hollering in the halls the staff would shake their heads at him in amusement or give him exasperated but fond looks. Today, they turned away from him or hurried past when they saw him.

Was something wrong with the Kim family? Maybe Jaejoong’s father was sick. Mr. Kim was older than most of the parents of kids Yoochun’s and Jaejoong’s age. He’d seemed alright the last time Yoochun had seen him but maybe he’d suddenly taken ill. It would explain the somber mood in the house. Suddenly filled with worry, he ran to Jaejoong’s room throwing apologies at the maids he sprinted by. 

The room was empty. Not just empty, it looked untouched. Jaejoong wasn’t a messy person but there was usually a partially rumpled blanket or a carelessly tossed decorative pillow to denote his presence. Jaejoong’s bedroom looked like no one had been using it. 

“Jaejoong?” he called, in case his friend was hiding somewhere in the room.

The response he got did not come from his friend. “He’s not here.”

Yoochun spun around to see Jaejoong’s father in the hallway. Mr. Kim looked tired and aged much too far beyond his years. Was he really ill? “Are you sick sir?” he asked.

Mr. Kim shook his head. “Only heartsick.” He beckoned Yoochun with a hand. “Come with me.”

Yoochun frowned and followed after the old man. “Is Jaejoong out?”

Mr. Kim shook his head and kept on walking, carefully, as if he was in pain. He brought Yoochun to the kitchens and waved away the kitchen staff after they’d set out a selection of snacks. “Sit down.”

Yoochun was alarmed. Mr. Kim wasn’t one of those stuck up aristocrats who insisted on never sitting down to a meal without full service but he did place a certain amount of esteem in proper ceremony. The Kims did not eat in the kitchens and the way the man slumped into a chair and gulped down a glass of water was not at all proper.

Yoochun sat down opposite Mr. Kim warily and did not touch the bowl of fruit that was pushed across the table towards him. When he asked again where Jaejoong was it was with a feeling that was quickly giving rise to fear.

“You should eat something.”

Yoochun shook his head. He didn’t think he’d be able to keep anything down until the churning in his stomach was settled.

Mr. Kim exhaled audibly. “Jaejoong was Selected.”

Something cold settled in Yoochun’s chest with the single word. 

Selected. 

Yoochun would have been happy to be Selected and whisked off to a better life, but not Jaejoong. Jaejoong had never bought in to the idea of Honored Spouses. He’d loudly and frequently decried the entire practice to Yoochun, saying that an Honored Spouse was nothing more than chattel. Yoochun didn’t agree with him but he didn’t have to agree to understand and accept his friend’s feelings. Jaejoong would never have chosen to be Selected. Jaejoong would never have wanted to be Selected. Jaejoong would never have willingly left his home in the company of a royal of any kind. Jaejoong would have refused to be Selected.

When Yoochun said as much the answer he got from Mr. Kim left him feeling nothing but sickness and dread.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to be Selected.”

Yoochun shook his head in denial. “You don’t believe that. _Jaejoong_ doesn’t believe that. Why would you let him go?”

“It was not a matter of letting, Yoochun.”

“Jaejoong wouldn’t want to go,” Yoochun protested. “If said he did, he was lying. Or there’s something wrong with him. He wouldn’t just— _just go_! Doesn’t that matter, that he wouldn’t want that?”

Mr. Kim closed his eyes as if to collect his thoughts. When he opened them, there was a hardness in his face that Yoochun had never seen from Jaejoong’s usually open and soft spoken father. “You are very young,” he stated, holding up a hand to stop Yoochun’s protest. “You are very young and there are things that you you cannot—” he paused “that you _will not_ understand. When you are older, more experienced you will understand that it _does not matter_ what Jaejoong might have wanted. This is his lot in life.”

Yoochun stood up, body shaking furiously. “So you won’t do anything? You won’t even try to bring him back?”

“I cannot bring him back.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said and raced out of the kitchen ignoring Mr. Kim’s calls. He made his way back to the garage trying to ignore the prickling in his eyes and the burning in his nose.

He hopped on his hover bike and pulled out of the gate unsure of what he was supposed to do next. He knew for certain though that he would not bury his head in the sand and pretend Jaejoong was off living the high life. He slowed as he approached the gate seeing the laser grid still up. 

“Let me out!” he shouted at the gate guards when the fence did not go down.

The guards stared at him grimly. “The master has not finished his business with you. You’ll wait here,” one of them said.

Yoochun growled in frustration and dismounted his bike. He kicked the ground furiously. If he tried to drive through the fence he’d disintegrate on impact. He was stuck until Mr. Kim said he could go. 

He didn’t have long to wait before Jaejoong’s father was seen rushing up the path from the Kim mansion. Yoochun felt a twinge of guilt. Mr. Kim was older and despite his careless attitude towards Jaejoong’s abduction, he was clearly not well. He shouldn’t be running after Yoochun in his condition. 

Yoochun pushed the guilt down. It was nothing compared to the despair he felt for his friend and the anger he felt towards Mr. Kim for leaving Jaejoong to rot.

Mr. Kim stopped in front of Yoochun, panting in breathlessness.

Yoochun did not let it affect him. He couldn’t afford to. Not if he was going to save Jaejoong.

Mr. Kim reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ball of cloth. “Take this,” he said, handing the cloth to Yoochun.

Yoochun took the cloth and the fabric fell away revealing a small, black object. It looked like a wedge that fit into an oval with grooves all over the surface. Yoochun felt like he could lose time following the paths, twists, and turns etched into the wedge.

He jumped in surprise when Mr. Kim’s hand shot out to replace the fabric, covering the object. “Keep it covered,” he said sharply. “Put it away. Do not let anyone see it.”

Yoochun hastily shoved the thing into his pack. Mr. Kim was not a man who made demands lightly. It was best to obey when he did. “What is it?” Yoochun asked.

“It is…” Mr. Kim seemed lost for words. “Perhaps the _only_ chance that the Jaejoong we know might be saved.”

“What?” Yoochun was confused.

Mr. Kim placed his hands on Yoochun’s arms and turned Yoochun to look at him. “ _I_ cannot help Jaejoong,” he said. “Do you understand me? _I_ cannot help him. But _if_ you see him, give him that.”

Yoochun nodded slowly, understanding beginning to dawn on him. Mr. Kim had said ‘if’ but Yoochun was hearing ‘when.’ 

Mr. Kim gave Yoochun another bag. “This should help you. Stay away from the official transports. Keep the object secret. Do not trust _anyone_ with it. Give it only to Jaejoong. Do you understand? _Only to Jaejoong_.”

Yoochun nodded. “Yes.” 

Mr. Kim couldn’t help Jaejoong. The scrutiny of the entire system would be on the Kim family now that Jaejoong had been Selected. Mr. Kim was right, it was an honor and a privilege to be Selected and behaving as if it was not would put his entire family in danger. But Yoochun was not a Kim.

Mr, Kim looked at Yoochun with sad eyes. “You are so very young,” he said.

Yoochun smiled back wanly. “Almost old enough to be married.”

Mr. Kim shook his head stepping away from Yoochun. He looked to the guards. “Let him go,” he said and turned away without another word, heading back the way he came.

Yoochun peered inside the bag Mr. Kim gave him. His eyes widened in shock at what he saw. There were more credit chips than Yoochun’s parents had ever allowed him to have and identification cards that had Yoochun’s face but not his name. He quickly closed the bag and stuffed it into his pack next to the strange object, looking furtively at the guards. They had already released the laser grid and were not looking at Yoochun. In fact, it appeared as if they were making an effort not to pay him any attention.

Yoochun got back on his bike and pulled away from the Kim estate letting the guilt wash over him. He should have known Mr. Kim would never leave Jaejoong to rot as some disgusting prince’s fuck toy. Jaejoong was his only son. Mr. Kim would always take care of him, even when the law said that Jaejoong was no longer his responsibility, or even a part of his family.

Determined now more than ever to do everything he could to rescue Jaejoong, Yoochun rode towards the seedier part of the city. If he couldn’t take a disc off the planet and get on an official transport ship he’d either have to stow away on a ship or convince one of the smugglers to take him on. The credit chips Mr. Kim had given him would help with that.

Yoochun ditched his bike in an alley. He wouldn’t need it anymore and if he found Jaejoong he wouldn’t be coming back for it. If he didn’t find Jaejoong, well, chances were high that he _couldn’t_ come back for it.

He secured his pack and walked out of the alley keeping his head down. There were people here who would take eye contact as an excuse to start a fight and Yoochun didn’t need the trouble. He made his way down a street full of loud pumping music and bright neon signs until he came to a building with a long line outside the front and a changing sign declaring it “Club Envy” “Where all your pleasures come true.”

Club Envy was one of the more popular nightclubs in the city. It was where all the young adults with more credits than sense came to get high on sex, drugs, and life and blow all their money. It was also a hot spot for smugglers and pirates looking to move their merchandise. Yoochun had never been inside but he knew one of the bouncers who worked the back door.

Or rather the bouncer knew Jaejoong. Paid entirely too much attention to Yoochun’s friend. Was inappropriately in lust with him, really.

Yoochun was not above taking advantage. He walked past the line and ducked into the alleyway between the club and the next building. There were two bulky men in dark clothes standing guard at a door. Yoochun sauntered up to one of them, flashing a grin. “Hey, Jin.”

Jin raised an eyebrow and the other bouncer glanced at him. Yoochun didn’t lose the grin.

“What do you want?” Jin asked.

“Let me in?” Yoochun replied.

The other guard snorted and rolled his eyes, turning away from their conversation.

“You sixteen yet?” Jin asked.

“Yes.” Yoochun lied.

Jin scoffed at him. “Come back when you’re old enough.”

Yoochun whined. “You’d have let Jaejoong in.”

Jin scowled at that. “Yeah, well Jaejoong ain’t on this planet anymore is he?”

Yoochun wasn’t surprised Jin knew. It was big news when a royal took an Honored Spouse. The only reason Yoochun hadn’t known was because he’d gone straight to the Kim house when he’d gotten off the transport home. “I’m trying to find him. I can’t leave him alone with some royal.”

“Oh yeah?” Jin said. “You gonna stick it to a System Lord’s brat? You and what army?”

Yoochun grasped Jin’s arm. “Come on, Jin. Help me out. I have to help him.”

Jin sighed in exasperation. “One hour,” he said.

Yoochun’s face lit up in excitement.

“I’ll give you one hour and then I’m dragging you out. Don’t cause any trouble.” His partner looked at him in disbelief but Jin ignored him and opened the door, motioning Yoochun past him.

Thank Jaejoong’s pretty face, Yoochun thought as he went inside. He was immediately assaulted by strobe lights and the sound of thumbing bass. The club smelled like alcohol and smoke with faint layer of vomit. He didn’t know how anyone could stand to spend hours here. Yoochun had only been inside a minute and he already wanted to get out.

He steeled himself against the knee jerk reaction to leave and waded into the crowd of bodies flailing and gyrating to the beat of the music. He pushed his way through the smash of people to the bar where breathing space was only slightly better and scanned the crowd for the types of people he was looking for. 

He was only alone for a few minutes before a man in tight pants and a loose fitting shirt came up to him. The man didn’t look like the typical club goer but Yoochun didn’t think he was a space pirate either.

The man leaned into Yoochun’s space. “What’s someone like you doing in the place like this?”

Yoochun leaned away. “I’m waiting for a friend,” he said.

“Want some company?” the man asked running a hand down Yoochun’s arm.

“No, thank you,” Yoochun said shaking the man off and turning to leave.

The man grabbed his wrists and pulled him back. “Stay a while,” he said stepping closer until he was pressed against Yoochun.

“Don’t you know no means no?” a voice asked.

Yoochun and the man turned to see a dark haired woman in cargo pants, combat boots, and a vest glaring at the man with her arms crossed.

The man sneered at her. “Mind your own business, bitch.”

Quick as lightning the woman reached out and slammed the man’s face against the edge of the bar. 

Yoochun jumped back in shock.

The man cried out. “What the fuck!”

“Beat it,” the woman said and the man slinked away without another word, holding his bleeding face. “You okay kid?” she asked smiling at Yoochun.

Yoochun nodded, speechless. “Yeah. Thank you.”

“You gotta be careful. Lots of dangerous people around these parts.” She held put a hand. “I’m Kate.”

Yoochun shook her hand. “Yoo-Yoobin,” he said giving her a false name.

“Yoobin, huh?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Kate stared at him for a second then quirked her head. “Yoobin it is. Let me get you a drink.”

“I’m not old enough to drink,” Yoochun blurted out, then cringed at his stupidity.

Kate laughed. “You’re not old enough to be in here either. Have a little fun, yeah?”

Yoochun nodded reluctantly.

Kate, clapped him on the shoulder and pounded on the bar for attention. “Get my friend here a dirty curly,” she told one of the woman behind the bar.

“A dirty curly?” Yoochun asked.

“You’ll like it,” Kate said. “It’s sweet. Like you.”

When Yoochun had the neon green drink in hand Kate took his hand and pulled him over to one of the booths lining the edges of the dance floor. “These are my friends,” she said, gesturing at the men and women seated at the booth. They all looked a little rough and Yoochun thought he might have found the smugglers he needed. “Guys, this is my new friend Yoobin,” she said sliding into the booth pulling Yoochun in after her.

A round of ‘hey’s’ came from the table. Yoochun took a small sip of his drink. Kate was right, it was sweet. He couldn’t taste the alcohol at all.

“So Yoobin,” Kate said. “What are you doing here? A bit of teenage rebellion?”

Yoochun took another sip of the drink and shook his head. “No. I need to get off planet to find my friend.”

Kate leaned her chin on her hand at grinned. “Did your friend run away?”

Another head shake. “No, he was taken. I’m going to get him back.”

Kate shot him a sultry smile. “You know, we have some experience recovering lost people. We could probably help you out.”

“Really?” Yoochun asked, excited.

“Sure thing, sweetie.”

Yoochun was suddenly jerked out of the booth by the back of his shirt. “Hey,” he said. “Let me go.”

“Don’t you know slave traders when you see them?” the man holding him asked. He was tall with light brown hair, tan skin, and ears that stuck out of his head like an elephant’s.

Yoochun was confused. “Slave traders?” Slavery was illegal in the empire.

Kate stood up quickly. “Hey! Find your own prey.”

Yoochun paled at her words. She had seemed so nice.

The man growled and flashed glowing eyes at her. 

Kate backed down quickly. “Sorry, sorry. Take him.”

The man pulled Yoochun away, dragging him back through the crowd and out the club. He shoved Yoochun up against a dirty wall. “Are you stupid?” he asked.

Yoochun gaped at him. “You’re a Dragon!” he blurted. “Please, can you help me?”

The man stared at him in disbelief. “Have you learned nothing? I just saved you from slave traders. What if I did it so I could keep you as a bed slave myself?”

“I don’t care,” Yoochun said desperately. “You can have whatever you want. Just help me find my friend.” Finding a Dragon was the best thing that could have happened to him. Smugglers could get Yoochun off the planet, but this man could get him into places only nobles could go.

The man stepped away from and crossed his arms over his chest. “Park Yoochun. Age fifteen. Born on the 3rd solar day of Pantera. Best friend. Kim Jaejoong. No doubt the friend you’re trying to find.”

Yoochun’s eyes widened in shock. “How did you…?”

“You cause a lot of trouble in a short amount of time,” the man said. “I’ll take you with me, but only to stop you from being a problem.” He jerked Yoochun forward.

Yoochun stumbled, dropping his pack as he fell. The pack caught on a lose stone in the wall and tore open, spilling its contents all over the ground. Yoochun scrambled forward as he saw the ball of cloth concealing the object Mr. Kim had given him roll towards the man.

The man picked it up slowly furrowing his brow. “What is this?”

“Don’t,” Yoochun said, his hand extended. Mr. Kim had told him not to let anyone see it.

The man unraveled the cloth. “Where did you get this?” he asked reverently, staring at the black wedge.

Yoochun pushed himself onto his feet and snatched the object back. “It’s Jaejoong’s.”

“Is it now?” the man asked. “Well, now I really can’t let you go.”

-

Yunho paced back and forth on the the holodeck. “How bad is it?”

The image of Changmin raised an eyebrow. “You’re not monitoring the news yourself?”

Yunho stopped pacing. “No, I’ve had more important things on my mind.”

Changmin nodded. “That’s what happens when you bond.”

He would know. Changmin had spent days utterly useless except for anything that involved Junsu when they had bonded, much to Yunho’s amusement and frustration. Luckily, that stage didn’t last long for the full blooded Dragon in the pairing and Changmin had quickly gone back to his usual efficient self.

“The attack is all over the nets.” Changmin said. “Your father’s vowed retribution on the responsible parties.”

That was typical. His father was not the type of man who would let something as small as a passing insult go unpunished and this was an assassination attempt on his only son and heir. “And the Order?”

“They’re keeping silent as usual.”

Yunho nodded, not happy about it but understanding. The Order of the Dragon, while required to officiate over all noble weddings and ceremonies, did not involve themselves in ‘petty political squabbles.’ “What have heard?” he asked Changmin.

Changmin shook his head. “Nothing. None of the known rebel groups have taken credit for the attack and I haven’t heard so much as a whisper from any splinter groups.”

“Damn it,” Yunho cursed.

“I’ll keep my ears to the ground and let you know if I find something,” Changmin said. “There’s something else though.”

“What?”

“I picked up your Jaejoong’s friend, Yoochun, trying to hitch a ride from any lowlife he could find. He nearly got picked up by slave traders.”

Yunho grinned. “You’re a bleeding heart.”

Changmin scowled at him. “You would have done the same thing.”

“True.”

“He had a piece of the goods we’re trying to buy.”

Yunho froze. Goods was the code word they used for The Egg over communications channels. “How?”

“He won’t say,” Changmin answered. “He claims it belongs to your Jaejoong.”

Yunho’s mind raced. “We need to find out how he got it. My Jaejoong isn’t like other humans, he’s special. If this Yoochun has information, we need it.” It was likely that with it having been on the same planet as his Jaejoong, wherever that piece of The Egg came from would hold the key to explaining his Jaejoong’s extraordinary biology.

“Special?” Changmin asked.

“Yes, special. Very much not like other humans.”

“I see,” Changmin said slowly and Yunho was certain he did. “I’ll get him to talk.”

“Thank you,” Yunho said. His voice softened. “I miss you.”

Changmin’s face wrinkled. “We have only been a part for a week.”

“A week too long.”

Changmin sighed. “We both agreed to this.”

“I know,” Yunho said, wryly. It had been Yunho’s idea in the first place. After they were on a planet where anything significant happened, Changmin stayed behind to tie up any loose ends. But he still itched with wrongness when Changmin was too far away. “That doesn’t mean I don’t miss you when you’re not with me.”

“You’ll feel better when you have your spouse’s full attention. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced.”

“I know.”

“Speaking of spouses, get your ugly face away and let me see my baby,” Changmin demanded.

Yunho chuckled. He used the ship’s communication system to contact Kangin. “Kangin, bring Junsu up to see Changmin.” He waved to Changmin before leaving the room. “Have fun.”

Boa was waiting for him in the hall. “Jaejoong’s awake.”

Yunho rushed past her and took a transporter to the medbay. When he got there he saw his Jaejoong sitting up naked in the cryotube they had forced him into. Boa’s acolytes were hovering around him checking his vitals. Yunho glared at them and went to his Jaejoong.

His Jaejoong perked up and gave Yunho a smile brighter than the twin suns of Yunho’s home planet when he saw him. Yunho placed his hands on his Jaejoong’s cheeks and tilted his face up to look at him. “How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

His Jaejoong wrapped his arms around Yunho’s neck. “Better now that you’re here.”

It was the first time Yunho had heard his Jaejoong’s voice in the physical world. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. 

He lifted his Jaejoong out of the tube and his legs wrapped themselves around his waist. His Jaejoong pressed in closer nuzzling his nose against Yunho’s cheek. Yunho felt a warm buzz in his mind at his Jaejoong’s touch.

“You need to complete the bond,” Boa said, interrupting the couple’s moment together. She handed Yunho a bottle.

He took it, easily holding his Jaejoong up with one arm.

“It’s Etherica, to help with the bond formation.” She wrinkled her forehead and touched a hand to her temple as if to relieve a headache. “But I don’t think you’ll need it.”

His Jaejoong paid no attention to her, continuing his nuzzling.

“Will you witness?” Yunho asked.

Boa shook her head. “At this point it shouldn’t be necessary. Any Dragon worth anything will be able to feel your bond.”

Yunho dipped his head towards her and carried his Jaejoong out of the medbay. He didn’t let him go until they were in the quarters Yunho had taken over for his own use. He placed his Jaejoong down on the bed. 

His Jaejoong refused to let go of him and tugged Yunho down on top of his body. “Stay,” he said, pulling at Yunho’s clothes.

Yunho pressed his lips to his Jaejoong’s and helped his spouse remove his clothing, pushing his pants down his legs with one hand and raising the shirt over his head. He settled his body over his Jaejoong’s and felt a gently tingle under skin where their bodies touched.

“I can feel you in my head,” his Jaejoong said wondrously. “What is it?”

Yunho curled his fingers around his Jaejoong’s waist lifting himself off of the body beneath to kneel between his Jaejoong’s legs. “It’s us. It’s our bond.”

His Jaejoong looked at him curiously. “Do you like it?”

Yunho grasped one of his Jaejoong’s hands and lifted it to his lips, kissing the smooth skin. “I love it. It means you’re mine. Body.” He gently lowered the hand to the bed. “Mind.” Yunho leaned forward to kiss his Jaejoong’s forehead. “And soul.” A kiss to his Jaejoong’s chest.

His Jaejoong gave him another brilliant smile. “Yours.”

Yunho reached between his Jaejoong’s legs and rubbed slowly at his entrance. “Open for me.”

His Jaejoong’s face twisted in confusion.

Yunho pressed another kiss to his lips. “Just relax. Your body does the rest.” 

Sex between Dragons was easy. Their bodies did what their minds willed them to. Coupling with a pure human was messy and cumbersome, distasteful. Yunho liked the idea that even if he had met his Jaejoong randomly, things between them would still have been this easy.

His Jaejoong’s body slackened and Yunho pushed is fingers inside with ease. He rubbed slowly, feeling the echoes of Jaejoong’s pleasure in his own mind. He slipped his fingers out and shifted so his pelvis was nestled against his Jaejoong’s.

His Jaejoong’s legs wrapped around his waist and arms tugged on his neck. Yunho went down with ease, moving his mouth slowly against his Jaejoong’s as he slid into him.

He saw a quick flash of a blood red egg and a giggling baby in his mind as his Jaejoong’s fingers clenched his back. “None of that,” he said. “Just focus on me and how good we both feel.”

Mind over matter. Dragons had absolute control over their bodies. His Jaejoong could will a conception if he desired it but this was no time for children. Yunho breathed easy as the images drifted away and rewarded his Jaejoong with another kiss.

He kept their pace slow, rocking them to an effortless finish and the bond between them settled, content in it’s security.


End file.
